


Frostbite

by Anonymous



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: AFAB reader - Freeform, Fluff, Light Angst, Shiver! Reaper, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 22:31:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12419619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: You’re spending the winter alone at a friend’s cabin, with no one around except for the animals of the forest, and a strange barn owl that you notice more than once. When you make the mistake of interrupting the owl’s hunting, you find yourself faced with a frigid spirit of the forest- one who expects repayment for his lost meal in a rather unconventional way.





	1. Chapter 1

As long as you can remember, winter has always smelled like trees. Most people think of snow, or flickering wood fires, or even pine, but to you, winter has always been the smell of old, long-dead trees.

As long as you can remember, winters have been spent at the cabin-in-the-woods lodging of a friend of yours. You’ve never spent the season there alone, until now.

It’s uncomfortable due to the unusualness, not the isolation. The little cabin is well away from civilization, perched amid rolling snowy hills and packed in between thick pine forests that teem with deer and birds and a thousand other things. The cabin is cozy, a sweet little cottage of hefty wooden beams and logs, tucked away in the world of snow and pine trees.

Amélie has asked you over and over if you were sure you still wanted to spend the winter alone in the forest, but despite the lack of neighbours and wild dangers, you had never been one to shy away from a little adventure. Especially not when that adventure happens to come along with the only peace and quiet you’ll get all year.

Amélie was a good enough friend to take you shopping before she left for her unfortunately timed trip, and you joked that if anyone stumbled upon the pantry, they might get the impression that the tenant was a hibernating bear. She hadn’t quite appreciated that as much as you thought she should’ve.

A week into your stay at the cabin, a small series of snow flurries hits. It isn’t enough to be worried about, and when morning finally breaks with the first blue sky you’ve seen in days, you’re all too eager to explore the freshly blanketed landscape.

The wintery air bites at the exposed skin of your face, and the wind is a sharp chill that cuts straight to the bone. It smells cold and fresh, an undisturbed air of ice and pine.

Your boots sink into the drifts, but they’re heavy enough to plow through them without much trouble. Bundled in an array of wool and fleece, the cold doesn’t bother you enough to distract from the sight.

The world looks beautiful like this. The snow covers everything thickly, turning the hills to deceptively shallow slopes. You know from experience that if you make the mistake of walking into the drifts at the bottom of the hills, you’ll sink up to the waist at the very least.

A bird trills, the sound cutting clear through the morning. Another replies, and slowly the forest comes alive with sound. The calls echo sharply in the air, the whole season full of crispness and bite.

The snow isn’t so high beneath the cover of the forest, and the white blanket is still fresh enough that there are no green needles coating the ground. The snow masks the smell of pine, and although you catch a dull whiff of the sweet musk, your nose is getting too cold to appreciate it.

You stomp your way through the snowdrifts, leaving deep tracks behind. There are other trails in the snow, everything from deer prints to the delicate, surface-level dents left behind by mice and birds. There’s a large set of something that looks like wolf tracks, and even though the deep forest is tempting, you know better than to You turn back, following your own bootprints. You can feel the cold in your toes now, and even with the sturdy boots and layers of clothing, the idea of curling up under a blanket with a warm drink is starting to seem like heaven.

There are enough squirrels running around that the movement overhead has become background noise. You hardly even register the bobbing of the branches that send down puffs of snow. At least, not until a sizable pile sloughs off from a branch and lands directly on your head.

The cold shock alone would have been enough to startle you, but when you feel something most definitely _moving_ , scrabbling for purchase against you, you trip. You go down with a shriek as you topple into the snow, but the cold is overshadowed by the living thing that seems to have fallen into your lap.

Every instinct screams at you to get back, and you scramble backwards in the deep snow. You don’t make it very far, and all you end up with is snow spilling into your boots and gloves. You do manage to tumble the animal off of your lap and into the snow, and you finally pause to size it up.

Your heart is pounding so hard that you can feel it against your chest, and your whole body is buzzing with alertness as you prepare to beat back a rabid squirrel lunging for your face. Then the creature shifts, and you realize that the warm, snow-speckled brown is feathers, not fur.

You slowly lower one mittened hand, blinking in utter shock as the creature gets its footing, draws itself up, shakes itself free of snow, and looks directly at you. The big, round eyes are the darkest black you’ve ever seen. What catches you off guard, though, is the pale heart-shaped face and tawny brown feathers of a bird that you’ve never seen at this time of day.

The barn owl ducks to preen snow from under its wing, slightly spreading the long, downy feathers.

You shift, just a little, and the owl’s head snaps up, face shifting side to side with slight twitches. The way the owl studies you seems almost human, and you laugh.

“I’m so sorry,” you say aloud, a product of being alone in a cabin for a week already. You’ve developed the habit of bursting into song without warning, and speaking to most of the plants and animals you come across.

The owl spreads its wings just a little, ducking down to preen at its chest. It seems entirely unconcerned with you, but when you move again in an effort to get up, the owl takes a fluttering, ungraceful retreat of a few feet. It stares at you with something almost like accusation, and you bite your lip, fighting back giggles.

The owl doesn’t seem to be hurt from its fall or your flailing, and you slowly get to your feet, brushing snow off of yourself.

“I said sorry,” you tell the owl, “but, to be fair, you’re the one that fell on me.”

Maybe your movement disturbed it, but when it ruffles its feathers and tips its head, you choose to interpret it as a look of offence. Before you can offer any more apologies, the owl regains its bearings and takes to the air.

Either the barn owl is an awful flier, or the pettiest bird in the world, because it clips the branch above you as it wheels around and escapes into the sky. The branch sends a shower of snow down over you, and you squeak as no less than two handfuls of it goes directly down the collar of your jacket.

           

It takes no less than an hour to warm yourself up once you get back to the cabin. You leave a heap of snowy clothes on the coatrack by the door, and the melting snow fogs the nearest window with condensation.

You yourself are curled up in front of the fireplace. It took some time to light and stoke it to a blaze, but now the flames lick at the stone and the mesh screen, warming your nose, which has finally stopped dripping.

The rest of your body is bundled in a soft, thick blanket that you stole from Amélie’s room. As long as you don’t accidentally light it on fire, you figure she won’t mind.

With the firelight warming your skin, you close your eyes and relax against the couch. For a cabin, Amélie went all-out, and the plush carpet and cushiony sofa are only the beginnings of the cottage’s comforts.

You sigh, closing your eyes for just a moment. The heat from the fireplace is soothing against your eyelids, and the couch hugs your body until you’re all but sinking into it. The logs crackle and pop, adding an earthy background sound to the edges of your drowsy consciousness.

You wake up slowly, just on the edge of groggy. The air is cooler than you last remember, and when you ease your eyes open, it’s to find the cabin dark. Your fire has long-since died, leaving pale ashes and cracked charcoal on the stones.

You stretch, easing your body away from the sofa’s embrace. Your limbs are sleepy-soft, and the whisper of dreams still cling to you.

It takes a feat of willpower to drag yourself off of the couch and check to make sure the fire is fully out. The ashes are just the slightest bit warm, but there are no sparks or glowing embers when you poke through them. You turn away from the fireplace with a tiny sigh, padding across the thick carpet. Your toes sink into it, and the lushness does its part to keep you lulled and drowsy.

Your half-awake state contributes at least halfway to the heart attack you nearly have when you look up to see a face in the window.

The instantaneous shock of terror is so strong that you don’t even manage a scream. Your mouth opens in a small ‘o’, and your hands release the blanket around your shoulders. It falls to the floor with a soft flop, and the adrenaline surge hits you right as you realize that it isn’t actually a face.

Or, not a human face.

The dark eyes and pale visage hovering about a foot or two above the windowsill belong to what you slowly and belatedly recognize as a barn owl. It’s perched outside, perhaps lured over by the faint light through your uncurtained windows. Either way, the owl only lingers a moment or two longer. Its dark eyes are round, and you stare back, frozen. For a heartbeat, you can see your own reflection in those dark disks, and then with a startlingly abrupt flare of feathers, the owl vanishes into the night, soundless as a ghost and leaving no trace.

You don’t budge, your heart still hammering. Chills run down your spine and you shiver, moving all at once. You rush forwards, yanking shut the heavy drapes over the slim floor-to-ceiling windows. You pull shut every set of shades you can find, until you’re satisfied that you won’t look up to see another face in the window, animal or not.

You’re still jittery from the scare, but after checking the locks one last time, and after making sure the small hatchet is still within reach of your bed upstairs, you calm down enough to head to bed.

Even with your heartbeat slowed and the last of the adrenaline gone from your system, you still can’t seem to fall asleep. It isn’t fear that keeps you awake; rather it’s that moment of breathlessness when you looked into the bright black eyes of the barn owl. That piercing gaze still burns in your mind, even when you close your eyes. Every detail is perfectly clear. You can still see the slight fringe of the owl’s lashes and the softer feathers ringing those dark, liquid eyes. You can still recall your own reflection silhouetted against those intent black pools with what you could almost swear was a glimmering ring of impossibly bright blue at the very, very edge.


	2. Chapter 2

The top layer of snow is icy, and it crunches under each fall of your boots. The frozen shell gleams in the light of the setting sun, lighting up gold and violet and pink.

You’re near enough to the cabin that you don’t need to rush to be home before dark, and you let yourself linger just a little as you pass by pine-needle boughs packed with little winter chickadees or the occasional skeletal, snow-dusted branches of a deciduous tree.

You wander past a cluster of red-berried bushes, their waxy green leaves dusted lightly with snow. The white powder looks like icing sugar on a confectionery ornament, and you push away the faint urge to pop the fat scarlet berries into your mouth.

The trees part, and you can see the cabin up ahead. The blazing sunset turns the snow-covered roof a light rose, and the icicles hanging from the eaves are solid points of dripping gold. The sun itself is just beginning to fall below the deep green treetops on the far side of the clearing.

A shadow skates over the snow at your feet, rushing silently past. You look up, pausing for a moment to pick out the bird flying above the trees. In the low light, it takes you a minute to recognize the brown-gold feather and hooked beak of a hawk.

The hawk is large, circling around over the trees. Its flight looks so easy, like a fish gliding through water. The hawk barely even shifts its wings, hanging aloft on invisible currents that you’re blind to.

All at once the hawk tucks its wings, plummeting in a streak of tawny brown. The bird strikes so fast that you see nothing but a puff of snow, and the hawk is in the air again, snapping out its wings and soaring away with something small dangling from its hooked talons.

The hawk dips past a treetop and you loose sight of it, but something else in the tree catches your attention anyways. You see a brown flash of feathers and for a moment your heart thrills at the possibility of a second hawk. You look closer, though, and realize that the second bird is only a barn owl, staring down into the clearing with deep black eyes.

The barn owl takes to the air with a bounce of a branch, and the pine needles send down a silent snowfall. The owl’s wingbeats are no louder as it slides away into the darkening world without so much as a whisper.

           

You wake late, when the sun’s insistent beams finally slice through your window and force you to move. Groggy, you keep the drapes drawn until you’ve polished off a mug and a half of coffee, and made a slight dent in your sizable breakfast stores.

You don’t bother with the drapes, and so when you step outside into the brilliant sun, the light dazzles you blind. You blink away the spots, but even once your eyes adjust, the sunlight on the bright white snow is hard to look at without squinting.

You reach over to brush the snow off of the cabin’s porch bench, resolving to finally shovel it off later in the day. For now, you just sit back and feel the nip of winter against your skin, and the cold, blazing light of the ice-white sun.

You keep an eye on the forest for any life, and with a little patience, you get to watch as a few deer wander past. They keep to the trees, not daring to approach the porch where you sit, and soon all that’s left of them is a delicate trail of hoofprints spotted in the snow, and a snag of white fur on the branches of a spindly bush.

There are dozens of birds flitting past, singing their high, cheeping songs. Squirrels dart and dash between the branches overhead, and a shifting patch of white catches your eye.

You don’t notice the rabbit at first, but as it draws closer to the cabin, you can pick out where the snow ends and the soft white fur begins. The rabbit sniffs at the air, crawling closer along the ground. Its ears are twitching, twin satellite dishes searching for sound.

The rabbit moves in hops, with a few yards of steps interspersed by pauses. Your breath is bated, still in your lungs, as you watch the creature draw slowly closer.

The silent rustle of movement is unnoticed by the rabbit, but it catches your eye. Perched in the tree at the very edge of the clearing, the pale-faced barn owl ruffles its feathers and shifts.

Your surprise at seeing the night creature during the day is overshadowed quickly by the realization that the bird is looking towards the rabbit almost hungrily, wings lifting and feathers spreading.

You jump to your feet right as the owl strikes. Your jerk of movement startles the rabbit, who immediately bolts, saving its throat from the barn owl’s sharp talons. The owl still manages to snag it, though, and the rabbit lets out a _scream_ of terror.

The horrifyingly human sound of it sends a bolt of fear through you as well, and you freeze, watching with wide eyes as the owl’s strike misses by a hair, claws tearing through fur.

The rabbit speeds away, bounding over the snowy hills. The owl struck deep enough to wound it, and the rabbit leaves behind drops of rubies amid the sheets of snow.

The owl rights itself in the air just before plowing into the ground, winging around in a slow circle before coming to perch on the far end of the deck railing. For a second it just looks at you, and your chest tightens. You could swear the animal is exuding irritation.

Before you can move, the owl takes off once again. It disappears into the now-silent trees. There is no sign that it was even here, if it weren’t for the deathly still quiet, the drops of blood in the snow, and the twin sets of talon-like prints in the coating of snow on the rail of the deck.

 

You spend the remainder of the morning following the injured rabbit’s tracks, stamping down the bloody spots and kicking fresh snow over them. You don’t know how much good it will do, but you don’t need the scent of freshly spilled blood coaxing cougars or wolves any closer to the cabin.

You abandon the trail when it’s been long enough between blood spatters, and you retrace your steps, returning to a more familiar section of the woods. With the high noon sun, the world is lit silver, and the trees make hatched shadows on the ground.

You wander through the forest, only vaguely deciding to go find one of the streams that runs down from the northerly mountains. It’s fresh, and clean, if Amélie’s biannual water testing can be trusted. At any rate, you’ve drunk from it enough that if there was anything in the water, it would be far too late for you by now.

You find the stream, too fast-moving to be frozen yet. You sink to your knees, and the stream freezes your fingers instantly when you dip them into the clear waters. You cup your palms, bringing the water to your lips and gulping it down. It’s so cold it sings through your teeth, making your mouth and throat sting in protest. Despite the frigid discomfort, it’s incredibly refreshing, and you can’t stop yourself from dipping your hands back into the icy waters and gulping down enough to make your belly cold.

All at once, the hair on the back of your neck prickles with unease. You glance over your shoulder, but nothing is there. You hesitate for a second before grabbing your gloves and walking back towards the cabin. You’ve been told a million times to trust your gut, and even if you don’t see anyone watching you, you can never be sure there isn’t a bobcat lurking in the trees.

You keep your pace carefully neutral, to avoid sparking the desire to give chase, but the feeling of being watched doesn’t diminish. It seems to follow you, and you dare a glance up into the trees behind you.

You’re looking for large shapes, but you notice the spot of brown instantly. There, in the branches of one of the trees, is the all-too-familiar form of the barn owl.

You know it’s ridiculous to assume that there is only one barn owl in the entire forest, but somehow you _know_ it’s the same owl, just like you _know_ the owl is watching you.

You swallow, turning away. You keep going, but instead of going straight this time, you weave your way through the trees. It wouldn’t be natural for an owl to move the way that you are, and you hope that will put your conscience at ease.

In fact, you’re almost certain you were being paranoid, until you look up just in time to see the barn owl land on the branch of a pine a few meters behind you.

You stare at the owl, and the owl stares back. It cocks its head to the side, studying you, and you do the only logical thing. You break into a run.

A part of you recognizes that running from an owl seems certifiably insane, but at this point you’re beginning to wonder if Amélie’s cabin in the woods really does fit more into the horror genre.

You scramble over a slippery felled log, steps slow in the thick snow. You know where you are, though, and you’re close to the cabin. You’ve taken a side path, one that leads through a quiet glade, now blanketed in silent snow and surrounded by thick foliage. It seems to enclose you, and you look behind you again, skidding to a stop when you don’t see anything following.

Slowly, you turn around completely. The path behind you is marked by your bootprints, but nothing else disturbs the snow, not even trails of animals. There are no birds singing, and there isn’t even a breeze to stir the air.

You stand still for a moment, waiting, but nothing appears behind you. Your shoulders relax, and you let out a breath, almost sheepish with the realization of how skittish and absurd you were just moments ago. Obviously, nothing is after you. Obviously, you’re completely safe.

“Not quite, little mouse.”

The voice is soft, amused, and gently growly, and you whirl around with terror thundering in your chest and panic exploding in your veins. What you expect is perhaps some serial killer, someone who hunted down your cabin and is here to chop you into pieces with a wood axe. What you _don’t_ expect is what you see.

The man before you isn’t human. You don’t use that term lightly; one look at him, and there are about five things that your brain struggles to comprehend. It settles on ‘not human’.

He’s tall, much taller than you, and much stronger, judging by his size. He’s wearing a cloak that’s as navy as the night on one side, while the lining is a bright, glowing blue. The same blue glow emanates from beneath the man’s hood, and from the gaps in his mask.

The mask is another story, bone-white in colour but almost indigo in the glare of the blue light. It’s shaped almost like a skull, with holes for eyes and a sharp, beak-like vee of a nose.

No, not a skull. A barn owl.

Your back hits a tree and you squeak. You hadn’t even realized that you were retreating.

The phantom before you begins to move, drawing nearer with slow, heavy steps that are strangely silent in the thick snow. As he draws nearer you swallow down the hum of your pulse in your mouth, pressing back hard against the rough bark of the tree at your spine.

The man stops in front of you, so close that you’re almost touching. Now you can feel the cold emanating from him, like you’ve just opened the freezer and stuck your head inside. When he moves, you hear a sound like the sigh of shifting ice. This close, you can taste the cold on your tongue when you inhale. He smells like ice and snow, and a hint of fresh water.

“You,” the wraith says, a deceptively soft word. “You stole my meal.”

“M-meal?” The words stumble out past the snow in your chest, past the ice freezing your airways. “I didn’t-”

“I doubt you’ve forgotten your rabbit friend already,” he growls, the softness gone from his tone. He sounds almost annoyed now, and you press back until the tree threatens to tear your skin with its rough bark.

“I- you’re- the owl.” You swallow, your lips cold. In fact, all of your exposed skin is cold, and you can feel the faint lace of frost forming on your eyelashes.

The wraith tips his head, and the gesture is so reminiscent of the barn owl that it would be funny, if it wasn’t quite so terrifying. He takes a half step closer and your breath hitches, body going still as you look up into his eyes.

You can see them through the holes in the mask, past the bright blue glow. His eyes are narrowed, and they’re such a bright, ice blue. His eyes are fringed by dark lashes, and you can just make out the snowflakes clinging to them before he pulls back.

“Yes.”

“Wha-”

“Yes, I’m the owl,” he repeats, his tone blasé. He flicks the fingers of one hand, and your attention is drawn to the long, ice-blue claws that seem to take the place of fingers.

“You stole my meal,” the wraith grumbles, reaching up for your throat. “I expect you to repay me.”

He moves so fast you don’t have time to react, and those daunting claws spear into the tree, digging into the bark on either side of your neck. You can feel the cold emanating off of his claws like they’re made of ice, but you’ve never seen ice glow blue the way he does. You swallow and his hand shifts just enough for you to feel his palm against your throat.

His hand stings like ice, making your skin tingle. But then the pain of it fades, and you’re left with the chill of him on your skin, like the fading bite of snow.

“What are you?” you whisper, and he _growls_ , a feral sound that, coupled with the sharp talons around your throat, sends a thrill through you. Oddly, though, you’re not entirely sure that it’s fear.

“I am death,” he says simply, like you should have realized.

“Death?”

“Death,” he repeats. “I am the Reaper of Winter.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, stiffening when his eyes narrow again.

“It means that I keep the balance. A balance which _you_ disrupted.”

The cold fire in his eyes is intense, but you can’t help the slight spark of indignation that swells inside your chest. The claws around your throat don’t seem to be a threat, really, so you don’t have much to stop you from reaching up to smack his arm away with a glare.

“ _Excuse_ me for not wanting rabbit guts all over my front yard,” you snap, suddenly furious. You wave a hand at the wraith, venting some of your frustration. “Yeah, _great_ idea. Having blood and viscera everywhere sure won’t result in me getting my throat ripped out by a cougar a few days later. Or _wolves_. As it is I had to go clean up your mess so nothing came sniffing around!”

For a moment the wraith just stares at you, hand frozen in the air where you knocked it.

“I- I wouldn’t have eaten it there,” he finally says.

“How was I supposed to know that?” you ask, and he huffs, reaching over and grabbing your arm. Your first instinct is to rip away from him, but when you realize he isn’t yanking at you, and that it was the arm that was gesturing kind of close to his face, you wonder if maybe he just did it out of self-preservation.

“I’m sorry about the rabbit,” you mutter, looking away.

“Sorry doesn’t erase a debt.”

You raise your head to glare at him. “Well what do you want me to do? Go hunt down a rabbit and kill it for you?”

“Yes.”

The blatant agreement catches you off guard, and then you visibly quail.

“You want me to murder a sweet little bunny?” you clarify with quiet horror.

“You can make me another offer,” the wraith says, voice low.

“What other offer?”

The wraith lifts one icy claw, stroking it slowly down your cheek. You shiver, electric tingles running up your spine.

“You,” he purrs.

You freeze, immediately recalling your initial expectation of being murdered. He must see it on your face, because he lets out a gruff noise that you could almost call a laugh, and then he shifts back a little, dropping your arm but running the tip of his talon along your lip.

“I consume energy,” he says softly, his voice a low, even rumble. “Life energy. When things die, I can take that energy and feed off of it.” He leans close enough to study you, watching the way your breath hitches when he lets his claw linger at the corner of your mouth.

“But I can also feed off of something with more life energy, such as a human being, if they’re dying, or if they allow me to.”

You swallow. “How does that work?”

“Either I can injure you severely,” he says, “or I can help you draw out more energy through more complicated but less painful means.”

“That,” you decide quickly. “The second one.”

The wraith looks almost surprised by how quickly you decided not to be beaten half to death by him, and for a moment you wonder how many human beings he’s actually interacted with.

“Are you sure?” he checks, and you nod.

“I’m sure.”

The wraith studies you for a moment, and then all at once, he moves.

One frigid hand comes up to push his mask aside. You only have a brief moment to take in his face, but in that split second you glimpse the dark, matte gray skin, the glowing blue eyes, the snow-white beard and the few curls spilling down over his scarred forehead. His lips curl in a smile, just enough for you to notice his fang-like teeth and glowing blue tongue.

With his hand on your face, the wraith has the ability to tilt your chin up, and before you can even manage to voice your shock and confusion, he leans in. His lips touch your neck with a burst of chill, like an ice cube held to your throat. His breath, is a sharp fog cold as a morning mist.

The wraith releases your face, pressing another kiss to your neck. Your brain stutters its way to words, and you open your mouth to protest.

All that leaves you is a shrill squeak when the wraith grabs your hips in a firm grasp and licks a stripe up your throat. His tongue is _freezing_ , and just the slightest bit wet. It’s decidedly not human, but it doesn’t feel like pure ice. The cold is there, but his tongue is soft, and moist, and- long. His tongue is very, very long.

A sting of pain singes your neck, and then that tongue laves over the spot, soothing the swift bite with the chill of winter. You press your lips together, eyes fluttering closed involuntarily when the wraith tugs you flush against his body before pinning you back against the tree.

He’s so cold, every inch of him ice and frost and the chill of winter fog. His ice-tipped fingers move over your body, and he fits his frozen lips back to your throat.

You bite your lip, swallowing, and the wraith presses frosty, open-mouthed kisses to your neck. They’re sloppy, but not wet, and by the time he pulls away, the marks are nothing but light dustings of frost on your skin.

The wraith shifts back enough to look at you, his eyes the hardest, coldest blue in the world. You think the only thing that could possibly match that colour is somewhere deep among the stars, as frigid as he is.

For a heartbeat the wraith doesn’t move. His face is close, and you can’t look away from his eyes, not until he licks his lips and moves.

Your eyes close a heartbeat before his mouth meets yours, and halfway through a thought, your mind splinters into a million fragments of feeling. You gasp against the cold of his lips, but he doesn’t pull away.

The feeling dizzies your head, and instinct keeps telling you that something this cold shouldn’t be this soft, but you shove away the thoughts and let go.

Kissing him is like kissing anyone; his lips are soft and his face is close and you can feel his breath on your cheek and his mouth pressing against you. Kissing him isn’t like anything you’ve ever felt; his mouth is cold and he tastes like ice, and the breath that skims your cheek is a chilly winter wind millimeters from your skin.

You can’t decide whether it’s frightening, or pleasant, or both. And then it doesn’t really matter, because somewhere along the way you parted your lips, and his tongue is slipping into your mouth.

Your breath hitches at the feeling, so shockingly foreign. He tastes like snow, like sucking on icicles and breathing in the scent of pine. But he opens you up so easily, and you catch yourself responding before you can decide if it’s a good idea.

Your hands are on him by reflex, your fingers clumsy under your gloves. The wraith grabs your hips, yanking you against his body as he kisses you, and your gloves are off, cast aside into the snow as you move your fingers to the hood of his cloak.

When you tug back his hood, the wraith’s breath hitches and his claws tighten on your body. You swallow, but you don’t falter, and a moment later your fingers find their way to his hair.

For a moment you aren’t sure it really is hair, because it’s the softest thing you have ever felt in your life. You remember, once, finding an owl feather on the ground. When you brushed your fingers over the edge, it was impossibly soft. So soft you could barely feel it, the feather was like a brush of a cloud against your cheek. The wraith’s thick, dark curls are as soft as any owl feather in the world, and you forget yourself, winding your fingers in deeply and running them through the downy, frost-tipped locks.

The wraith grabs you all at once, crushing you against his body as he shoves his mouth back to yours. It’s incendiary, and that fast, your control shatters.

A sigh escapes you in a burst of warm and cold air, and the wraith sucks your bottom lip into his mouth before finally, finally pulling back to look at you. You’re breathing hard, and your lips are tingling and starting to go numb. The wraith’s face is so close, and you can see the steam leaving his parted lips as clouds of your frozen breath fog the air between you.

Your tongue is tingling like you’ve been sucking on ice, and you’re stupid enough to want _more_.

You reach for him, and the Reaper starts a little, caught off guard. This time you’re the one to close the space between you, stepping forwards and eagerly stretching up onto your toes, kissing his cold lips once more.

A beat later the wraith responds, and it’s like an explosion. His lips meet yours with a burst of cold, and then his hands are on you, yanking you close and travelling over your body. His teeth meet your mouth, nipping at your skin before his icy lips and tongue soothe the pain into a frozen burn.

The wraith growls, a deep, feral sound, and yanks at your jacket. “Off,” he snarls before catching your lip between his sharp teeth, and you struggle to undo your jacket with a hazy mind and clumsy hands.

The wraith tears the jacket off of you the second he can, and before you can protest, or argue that it’s cold, his mouth is back on yours and you’re effectively silenced.

It really is cold. The chilly air immediately hits you, but you don’t have the space to even shiver as the wraith presses you to his body. You can feel the cold of him now, bleeding through your clothes and making you gasp.

The wraith’s claws move over you, exploring your hips and your sides and your back. His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, and then he catches your face, yanking your chin up to look at him as he traps you with sharp claws of ice.

“Don’t run,” he growls, narrowing his eyes and pinning you with his gaze for just a moment before he releases you and turns away.

The wraith takes a few steps away from you, and all at once you find yourself unsteady. You stumble against the nearest tree, leaning against the rough bark and breathing hard. You’re shaking a little, your body trembling with a feeling that you can’t quite place.

You should run. You know you should. Whenever someone tells you _not_ to run, sprinting in the opposite direction is usually the best plan. But you can’t make yourself so much as twitch as you watch the wraith shrug off his cloak and drape it over the snow.

He lays down his cloak before turning back to you, and he lets out a satisfied little huff as he crosses back over to catch your chin.

“Good,” he purrs, ducking his mouth closer.

You part your lips, tilting your face up, and you catch the flash of his smirk as the wraith avoids your mouth at the last second, skimming past and pressing a slow kiss to the soft spot just below your ear.

He breathes out slowly, and you shudder, struggling to stay upright. The wraith’s frozen lips brush against your ear, and then the lightest graze of his sharp teeth caresses the shell of your ear. You whimper, and the wraith laughs low and quiet, taking your arm at the elbow before he pulls back.

He tugs you with him, and you’re almost shocked that it isn’t rough. Some part of you expects him to shove you, but the wraith holds you just firm enough to urge you to follow him over to his cloak.

You don’t know what makes you do it; there must be something wrong with you. Maybe it’s from spending so much time alone, or maybe the cold is finally getting to your head, because some playful instinct tells you to pull your arm away, and you do.

Or, you try to. Right as you yank at your arm, the wraith’s grip tightens. He half-whirls to face you, body going tense, and then he just stops and stares at you with those deep, liquid black eyes.

You both know that you weren’t making any attempt to break free and take off. You both know that you weren’t planning on running.

He cocks his head to the side, and a slow smile reveals the sharp point of his teeth. His voice is a purr.

“Oh, you want to play rough?”

You open your mouth, but that’s as far as you get. As soon as your lips part, the wraith surges forwards and shoves his mouth against yours. His tongue is in your mouth, ice cold and slick, and your knees go weak as he dips his claws under your shirt, the sharp tips pressed to your spine.

He bites your lip, the sting half from cold and half from his gleaming fangs. He tests your body with the tips of his claws, and when you whimper, he laughs. It’s a dark, primal sound, all rough and dusky and low, and the hair on the back of your neck stands on end as you shudder.

The wraith yanks you against him, and for one brief, breathless moment, all you can process is the firm press of his chest, and his stomach, and his arms. And then in a whirl of movement, you’re on your back, on his cloak, and the Reaper is overtop of you, grinning like he’s caught himself the most delicious rabbit in the forest.

You gulp, but even the edge of fear can’t seem to snap you back to your senses. The wraith tilts his head, licking his lips, and the way his tongue moves only serves to make the arousal heat inside your gut.

He reaches out, and two ice-tipped talons come to rest on your lower lip. He pushes just a little, and you can feel the dangerous threat of broken skin. Your breath stutters, your lip trembling just a little as your eyes flutter closed.

The wraith hums, and you feel him move. You don’t need to open your eyes, because a moment later his lips are on your neck, ghosting up to your ear as he teases your skin with his wickedly sharp teeth.

The claws slide off of your lip, one retreating while the other pushes past your lips and into your mouth. It’s a struggle not to move, not to give in to the urge to whine and arch up against him. His teeth at your neck, his claw pinning down your tongue- you’re half mad with frustration, and when he finally retracts his finger from your mouth, you can’t stop yourself from letting your lips relax around it.

The Reaper pauses, sitting upright and studying you as you peer up at him. You move slowly, in case he moves fast, but he seems curious, and he doesn’t try to pull away. He lets you take hold of his wrist, studying you with an indecipherable expression as you gently take one single, frosty talon deeper into your mouth.

The cold is stinging, and you don’t last long as you suck on the deadly digit. Finally the numbness of your lips wins out, and you push his hand away, wiping your chin as a drip of cold wetness rolls down your skin.

The wraith hasn’t moved an inch, and his eyes are unfathomably intense. He’s just _staring_ at you, and then, all at once, _hunger_ flashes over his face.

He dives on you, gabbing you hard and yanking you up against him as he shoves his mouth to yours. The noise you make is startled but unintelligible as he muffles it with his mouth. You grab onto him, caught off-guard by his speed, but he’s already pushing you back down onto his cloak, pulling back for a breath to strip off your shirt.

The cold air hits you hard, and you yelp, but the wraith silences you with another kiss, pinning you down with his body as he strips you bare, leaving you utterly naked and exposed to the wintery air. His body is just as cold, and even his clothes give off a chill. You only have a brief moment to be relived for the cloak between you and the snow, and then your thoughts halt completely, because the wraith is crawling overtop of you, tugging down his own pants, and he’s- _blue_.

His length is the same shade as his eyes and his tongue, glowing brightly with a light that seems to be under his skin. And he’s _huge_ , thick and long and already hard. You open your mouth, but you can’t make a sound. And then he reaches down and presses one sharp, ice cold claw to your inner thigh.

You’re breathing hard- you’re almost _panting_ , and he’s _teasing_ you, smirking with a self-satisfied amusement as he slowly, lightly trails his fingertip up your thigh. He pauses just for a second, and then he brushes his finger up between your legs.

You whimper at the sting of cold, even as the heat of arousal flares deep between your hips. Your thighs twitch, and the Reaper moves to hold one down as he presses his finger against your entrance, teasing you with the frigid, frosted claw.

He pushes your legs apart, shifting to push his hips up to yours. You’re trembling, both with need and with the cold. Your teeth are starting to chatter, and you can see your panting breaths clouding the air like a fog of need. The wraith hums, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded as his gaze flickers salaciously over your body.

“You’re going to taste delicious,” he purrs, and then all at once he rocks his hips forwards and pushes into you.

He’s kind enough to only give you a few inches, but you still cry out, back arching and body jerking as your nerves react to the burst of near-painful cold. He’s _freezing_ , the icy sting penetrating deep inside you. You can feel it, inside and out, and your mouth falls open as you let out a choked cry.

The wraith growls, grabbing your hips and pushing into you further. You can’t seem to keep quiet, the noises spilling out of you senselessly. You’re shaking when he finally sheaths himself completely, and you can feel your slick dripping down your skin, hot and cold between your legs.

The wraith grunts, talons flexing and digging into your skin as he rolls his hips just a little. He slides so smoothly that you’re forced to realize just how wet you are, and the thought sends a visceral flare of arousal through your body.

You clench around him, and the wraith stifles a noise that almost sounds like a moan. You’re too far gone to bother with anything but feeling, and you can’t quite differentiate between the pain and the pleasure when the wraith pulls out of you entirely before thrusting back in.

He allows you a handful of slow thrusts, and then he pauses, adjusting his grip on your hips. You arch up with a whine, and those claws grip your thigh, and then you collapse into a haze as he snaps into you, over and over and over.

It’s so cold. It’s so cold, and the way he spears into you feels _transcendent_. He’s spreading you open in a way you can’t ignore, each roll of his hips accompanied by a fresh flash of ice deep within you.

The wraith is much rougher than he was before, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You’re all but gushing need, and when you catch a glimpse of his thick, glowing length disappearing inside you in fierce, rapid thrusts, your body aches and clenches. You can feel the heat of arousal and pleasure somewhere deep in your core, the only thing that isn’t tinged with frost and wintery mist.

The Reaper groans, eyes fluttering closed as you tighten around him. Your body is reacting all on its own, and it’s all you can do to hold on to the wraith, tangling your fingers in his soft hair, and drinking in his frost-dusted face before your eyes roll back and you cry out with pleasure.

The explosion of bliss hits you hard, but even under the rush of it, you can feel the wraith’s movement, and his body. He’s so _cold_ , and you’re starting to feel it as you fall into aftershock and each frigid touch becomes a shock to your system.

He’s moving raggedly now, the fierce rhythm broken. Each thrust is still hard, though, and just as you settle back into yourself, the wraith tenses and jerks.

You cry out as cold splashes through you, biting and deep and utterly, deliciously stinging. The wraith’s body presses close to yours, and he presses his face to your neck. He doesn’t kiss you, and after a second you realize that he’s inhaling, breathing deeply against your skin.

A growing sense of exhaustion washes over you, unnaturally fast. It breaks off when the wraith pulls back, pulls _out_ of you, followed by a gush of cold, wet fluid. There’s so much of it, spilling out in a small flood. It’s bright, luminous blue, and it’s as cold as riverwater as it drips out of you, staining your skin and tracing glowing rivulets down your thighs. You’re covered in it, a mess of bright blue mixed with your own slick.

The sight of it bring a blush to your face, and you bight your lip, shivering as the heat in your cheeks reminds you just how cold you are with every inch of your skin exposed to the air.

“I’m not done yet,” the wraith purrs, reaching out to push one of your legs up towards your chest. You whimper as the cold breeze chills your sensitive, wet folds, and the wraith laughs.

His eyes seem brighter, and he seems more _alive_ , more energetic. There’s an amusement in his expression as he studies you, pressing a teasing, frosty kiss to your inner thigh.

“Don’t forget, you owe me a meal.”

Somehow, he always manages to leave you one step behind. This time you’re left choking on your own breath as he ducks down and fits his mouth to your still-dripping sex.

“Ah,” you manage to whimper, but that’s as far as you get. Your voice squeaks off as he kisses you, again and again, soft and cold and shockingly gentle. And then he licks a long stripe up to your clit, and there is no way in hell _that_ ’s not going to get a response.

It takes him seconds to have you screaming, panting, crying out senselessly. Your sounds ring in the empty air, and each noise only seems to encourage the wraith as he laps at you with his long icy tongue.

You’re shaking, twitching and shivering and trembling so badly that you can’t think. That hot ache is building inside you with almost painful strength, and when the wraith pulls away, you nearly scream in frustration.

He doesn’t leave you for long; the wraith pulls back just long enough to lift you up, and then pull you overtop of him as he rolls onto his back. He gips your thighs, pulling you down onto his face, and your legs press against either side of his head as he closes his eyes and eats you out like he’s never tasted anything so good.

His claws are digging into your thighs, holding you hard, stopping you from moving. The most that you can do is tangle your hands in the cloak spread beneath the wraith’s back, clenching it hard as your breath turn to sharp, gasping pants.

You can feel the tension building, and your body is numb, but the few nerves that are still functional are electrifying you with the feeling of the wraith’s mouth on your tingling pussy. You come with a wordless shout, back arching so hard it almost hurts. The pleasure knocks you senseless, your vision going snowstorm-white and your body pounding with your heartbeat.

For one second the aftershock is all you feel, and then the exhaustion sweeps in. Your body is still heavy from earlier, but it feels like more energy is flooding out of you, draining from your body like the air from a punctured tire.

You sway, and two sharp, cold hands tighten on your thighs.

The wraith is no longer working you, but it’s almost like he’s breathing you in, drawing out your energy. His eyes flutter open, and they’re dark, dark black. It’s a startling difference from the earlier blue.

There’s more colour in his face, too. Beneath the faint scattering of frost on his skin, you can see the lightest dusting of a blue glow. It gradually strengthens, until finally he shifts away a little, and the connection breaks.

All at once, the heaviness hits you. You collapse, slumping over, but the wraith doesn’t seem to mind. Your thoughts are foggy, mind dull and hazy, but you can still feel the wraith gently shift you off of him.

You’re so tired. You’re so heavy, and your eyes are already half-closed. Sleep is pulling at you, and even though you’re so, so cold, it’s not enough to fight away the pull of sleep. You’re being dragged down, with your body made of marble, sinking into deep, deep snow.

Your mind snaps back with a start, and even though the haziness starts to drag at you right away, you’re panicked enough to stay conscious for a moment. You’re wrapped in something, and when you focus on the material, you recognize the wraith’s heavy cloak. You realize that the swaying is from being carried, bundled up in his arms.

The wraith hums quietly, notice your consciousness, and your fight against the weight of exhaustion.

“Rest,” he murmurs, almost kindly. “You need to let your body recover. I’ll take care of you.”

His soft voice lulls you, and you find yourself giving in easily to the temptation of sleep. Just before your eyes close, you see the wraith smirk wolfishly.

“I was right,” he adds smugly, speaking to himself as he looks ahead into the forest. His arms are strong around you. “Absolutely delicious.”


	3. Chapter 3

You wake feeling heavy, your mind still thick with sleep. Your body aches, but you’re so relaxed that it isn’t more than a distant whisper of feeling.  You roll onto your side, burying your face into the soft bulk of your pillow. You breathe in, the shifting singing pain through your back and your hips.

You startle fully awake, sitting up much too sharply. Your body winces, complaining with a few sharp stabs, and you press a hand to your stomach as your cheeks heat with the memory of cold, of ice, of the winter Reaper and his sharp, freezing claws.

You’re sore, but that isn’t quite so important right now. You stumble to your feet, throwing on a robe and shuffling towards the bedroom door.

He brought you home. Some part of you is utterly baffled by that. You had kind of assumed that he would just leave you there, or maybe even kill you. From the look of things, he just broke into the cabin and tucked you into bed.

You decide to dwell on it later, but even when trying to actively avoid thinking about it, your mind inevitably turns to the wraith. You lightly press your fingertips to your lips as you make yourself a mug of hot chocolate.

The cabin is cold enough to remind you of his touch, and you wrap your robe tighter, cupping your hands around your warm drink as you head for the fireplace.

You start up a fire quickly enough, curling up with a blanket and staring into the flames as you sip your drink. The hot liquid slowly makes its way down into your belly, and you squirm at the feeling. It’s a little uncomfortable, and all you can seem to think about is what it felt like when the wraith was inside you, chilling you to the core.

You gulp down the last of your drink with a frown, stretching a little to ease the twinging in your back. The fire is warm, and the smell of wood smoke fills the cabin. The flames pop and spark, hissing and flaring red and orange and gold.

There’s another heat, too, and you’re only just beginning to realize it. It’s been there all along, but faint enough that you hadn’t quite noticed until now. In fact, you’d swear you can feel it growing, a familiar flicker of arousal and want burning deep inside you.

It can’t be- it _can’t_ be what you think it is, only it _has_ to be, because every time you remember the wraith’s icy touch, it sparks hotter and hotter, until your skin feels uncomfortably warm, and you can’t stop from squirming, and you can no longer deny it.

You bank the small fire, but even after you’ve moved away from the heat, your body still longs for the cold. You shiver, wrapping both arms around yourself, biting your lip when the memory of sharp fingers teasing your tongue surges need between your hips.

It’s as if he’d left a ghost of himself with you, some haunting whisper of snow and ice that only makes you burn hotter and hotter, until you can no longer deny the fierce desperation swelling inside you.

The problem isn’t just the need itself; no, you want _him_. You want that frozen touch, and those sharp but gentle claws, and the way he pulled you down and touched you, _pleasured_ you senseless.

You can’t deny it, and you can’t _bear_ it. It’s almost painful how badly you want him, how desperate your body is for that lovely wintery bite. That desperate heat is scorching now, nearly burning you up from the inside, and it makes your whole body hot. You need that cold. You need that penetrating, stinging ice that freezes you to the bone.

Your skin is so unbearably hot, and your insides are a trembling mess of embers, painfully desperate. You’re hazy with it, and when you stumble outside, you’re only half in control of your body. It’s acting on its own, and you don’t have the strength of will or the good sense to stop it.

The cold wind hits you, but it’s nothing compared to those biting hands against your bare thighs. It’s nothing compared to his lips, and those kisses like frostbite.

You trip your way to the forest, stumbling underneath the snow-laden trees. The snow is fresh, but the sky is clear, and the world isn’t nearly enough to dampen the raging fire inside you.

“Reaper!” you shout, your voice ringing back at you in mockery as you trip through the forest. You leave behind footprints that look as unsteady as a fawn’s.

“ _Reaper_!”

Your body is so _hot_ , you could swear your skin is steaming in the open air. You must be breathing smoke, because something is burning you up from the inside, and it’s on the edge of painful, and something is very, very wrong.

“Reaper!” you scream one last time, collapsing to your knees in the snow. Your bare hands plunge into the thick drift before you, but you barely feel the temperature. It’s as though the snow were made of cotton.

“What are you _doing_?” a familiar voice barks from behind you, and a dizzy wave of relief floods you. You sway, but by the time you twist to look over your shoulder, he’s already crossing the distance between you.

You stagger to your feet, but you’re still burning. As the wraith draws closer, you can feel the chill in the air leeching into your bones.

“What are you doing?” he growls, and now he’s close enough to reach out, to grab you. 

“I-” All at once, something pierces through the fog of scorching heat that seems to have enveloped you. Those clawed hands on your arms send cold straight into you, and your knees give out. The wraith lets out a growl of annoyance as you fall into him, but he catches you, and as soon as your body touches his, the cold explodes through you.

The wind bites through you, slicing to the bone. Your hands and arms are frozen, tingling with pain from being plunged into the snow. You’re shaking, trembling with cold, and your teeth are chattering like a thousand fragile skeletons.

The wraith hisses out a low curse, and almost before you’ve gotten your bearings, he’s sweeping you up into his arms. You’re still trembling, and although the world is cold, his body is even colder. He feels like death.

“What did you do me?” you choke, shaking like a leaf in the wraith’s arms.

He lets out a noise that sounds almost like a sigh, and he turns his face away slightly. Guilty. “It’s my fault. I was too rough with you.”

“What?”

He shakes his head, carrying you out from under the trees. The cabin is there, door still unlocked, the way you left it minutes ago in your senseless, thoughtless rush.

“You’re a summer thing,” the wraith grumbles, his steps even and measured. “You can’t handle so much of the cold. I should have realized.”

“What do you mean?” you ask, suddenly desperate to keep him talking. He stops just before stepping onto the deck, hesitating before climbing the few stairs. He shakes his head again, and this time he doesn’t answer you.

“Warm yourself up slowly. If you do it too fast, you’ll burn up again.”

He lets you down before you’re ready, and even though you’re still shivering, you’re not ready to let him go just yet. You aren’t satisfied with just this.

Your stomach flips as you realize that you’re far more interested in the Reaper than you should be. You shouldn’t want to run your hands over every inch of his body, or taste his skin, or remind yourself what it feels like to be used by him. But you do. Very, very much.

The wraith begins to turn away, but you reach out.

“Wait-”

He snaps around before you touch him, and you freeze, hand inches away from his arm. You swallow, dropping your hand, but not willing to give up so easily.

“Come in for a bit,” you offer, and he goes so still you wonder, for a moment, if he’s about to bolt.

“You shouldn’t invite a spirit into your home,” he finally says.

You tip your head to the side. “Oh, so you’re a spirit?”

He makes another one of those quiet, growly noises, and you fight a smile as you put two and two together and figure that it’s a sign of annoyance. It’s kind of endearing, like a puppy’s growl.

“Well, the offer’s open no matter what you are,” you inform him. You’re trying very hard to keep your eyes on his mask, but every time he shifts, your gaze inevitable flits over the delicious planes of his body. You can’t tell if he’s that oblivious, or if he doesn’t care that you’re staring.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the Reaper says quietly, but instead of backing away, he shifts just the slightest bit closer.

You tip you face up to look at him as you inch closer as well. Having him close is dissipating that awful, feverish heat, and you can finally think again. “Why?” you tease. “Are you going to take me for round two?”

“Yes,” he rasps, and your stomach jolts.

There’s a slight pause while you try to reign in the flood of desire that fills you at the thought of him taking you inside, stripping you bare, and teasing you into a begging mess. A part of you craves the bite of his body against yours.

“I wouldn’t necessarily mind,” you say, striving to keep your tone even. It falls short at breathy, and the wrath recoils a little, confused.

“But- you’ve paid the price. You don’t owe me any more.”

“Do I need to?” you ask, and his head cocks to the side, like he can’t believe he heard you right.

“You,” he says, and then he bites the words off.

Your heart is racing, and some part of you warns you that this is the only chance you’re going to get. You lean back against the doorframe, tipping your head and summoning up the coyest expression you can manage. “The offer’s open.”

A heartbeat of stillness hangs in the air, and then he moves.

Faster than any human, the wraith is suddenly there, hand slamming to cabin wall just beside your head, body nearly pressed to yours as he boxes you in. His face is so close, and even with that damnable mask covering his expression, you can still see those _eyes_.

“You have three second to change your mind,” he snarls, his voice low. A predator.

You try not to swoon as the heat of arousal surges through you, making your breath hitch with desire.

“I’ll give you two,” you shoot back cheekily, and the Reaper growls, closing the space between you in a flash. He knocks his mask aside with one hand, but before you can look at him, he’s grabbing your face, tilting it up as his mouth finds yours.

The kiss is needy, and you’re both shocked and aroused at the blatant desperation in the wraith’s movements. His tongue is in your mouth, still cold, but not as biting as before. His teeth nip your lip before he sucks at it, and you wonder if his fangs are duller, or if you’re just imagining it.

His tongue is enough to get you senseless. He claims your mouth easily, and you have no qualms with giving in, letting him dominate the kiss and swallow your small, breathy sounds. Your voice hitches in a tiny squeak as he grabs your hips, one knee pushing between your legs. The desire floods your body, and you moan against the wraith’s insistent lips as he rubs his thigh up against you.

He reaches past you, opening the cabin door with all the ease of someone who doesn’t have their tongue in your mouth. It’s almost insulting, and the second you draw him back into the building, you make the executive decision to see if you can get him a little more distracted.

The wraith seems shocked enough when you shove him back against the door. He makes a noise of surprise, but it’s muffled by your lips, already on his. You don’t give him a chance to get his bearings; as soon as the cabin door slams closed from the force of his weight, you reach up, grabbing his face and hauling him down into a deeper, fiercer kiss.

You press your body against his, every inch of you soft against his chill. You stretch onto your toes, pushing your tongue against his, moaning softly as you press your pelvis against him, trying to get any friction you can.

The Reaper staggers, one arm hastily going around you as his other hand clutches for the nearest surface. He catches himself on the table, but you don’t let up. You turn, pulling him with you as you push yourself up, sitting on the table and hooking your legs around his hips.

You pull away from his mouth, but your arms are already around his shoulders, and you’re not about to give him any chance to escape. You duck to mouth at his neck, licking a long stripe up his throat before squeezing your thighs against his hips and sucking at his frosty skin.

You hear his claws skittering against the wood of the table, and the arm around your back tightens, claws grasping your butt as he _moans_.

The sound is soft, but with nothing to muffle it, it’s undeniable. Your arousal surges, and you arch your back, rocking your body into his.

The wraith hisses, and you’re entirely unprepared for him to lift you clear off the table. His claws curl around your ass as he lifts you, and your thoughts go hazy with lust. Effortlessly, the Reaper carries you across the room towards the unfolded couch bed near the fireplace. He drops you down, and your body bounces once before you’re pinned.

The wraith goes straight for the jugular, biting your skin before laving it with his chilly tongue. You sigh, toes curling, and his other hand pushes your knees apart.

You fall back, pulling him with you, and the wraith crawls up your body. He’s moving, shedding clothing, and by the time you’ve squirmed your shirt halfway up your body, he’s in nothing but his cloak, with those clawed gauntlets still teasing your skin. You can’t stop your eyes from flickering over his body.

His skin still doesn’t look human, but it’s not quite the strange, matte gray that it was the last time you saw it. There’s a hint of colour in in, a warm brown somewhere under the bluish, grayish tint.

Before your eyes can rove lower, the wraith reaches for his cloak. You snap out a hand, clutching his wrist, and he stills, eyes widening.

“Leave it on,” you demand, even as you flush with embarrassment at the request. A slow smirk curves the wraith’s lips, and you can see the blue glow of his tongue behind his sharp teeth.

“Only if you take yours off,” he purrs, and your fingers are suddenly fumbling as you peel off layers of clothing, casting them to the side. The Reaper gets impatient much too quickly, reaching for you with a growl and helping to strip you bare.

His eyes are molten with lust, searingly intense. A few dark curls fall onto his forehead, and you fight off the temptation to brush them aside.

Those sharp claws skim over your body and you shiver, biting your lip. He traces one fingertip across your collarbone and down your belly, pausing at your navel. You squirm, and he rumbles out a laugh, amused.

“Ask for it,” he growls, and you narrow your eyes stubbornly, stomach flipping with the thrill of it.

“Go fuck yourself,” you mutter, even as your skin flushes with desire.

“Is that what you want?” he purrs, taking it in stride. You’re left blinking, your head going hazy as he slowly reaches down, wrapping one clawed hand around himself.

The wraith narrows his eyes to slits, lips parting and head tilting back as he makes a show of touching himself. He must know how it’s affecting you; you’re panting lightly, legs pressed together as you grow wetter and wetter at the sight of those dangerous claws leisurely stroking his glowing length.

He hums, low in his throat, and there’s really only so much you can take. You pull away, scrambling onto your knees and batting his hand away from himself. He opens his eyes with a start, but you don’t spare him even a glance as you bend over, wrapping your hand around his base and taking the rest of him into your mouth.

The cold stings deliciously. In the warmth of the cabin, you can appreciate the slow burn of it as he slides over your tongue, as far as you can take him. He’s thick, and long enough that even with one hand around him, you can’t take it all.

You close your eyes, sighing through your nose before bobbing your head. He makes a choked noise, and he nearly takes your eyes out as he grabs you, claws gripping your hair.

You don’t pay him any mind, cracking open your eyes just enough to see the delicious blue glow between your fingers as you work him with your hand and your mouth.

The Reaper’s hips jerk, and you gag, a chilled drip of saliva running from your mouth. The wraith moans, and you push yourself to take him deeper. You want to take him like this, to show him that he isn’t the only one who’s capable of coaxing out whimpers.

Your body betrays you as your lips and tongue go numb, and finally your hand gets too cold. You pull back with a wet sound, licking your lips before dragging the back of your hand against them and sitting up.

The wraith is breathing hard, and you’re delighted to see a bright blue flush glowing in his cheeks and the tips of his ears. You can’t fend off your smug grin, but he gets rid of it easily enough when he cups the back of your neck and drags you into a scorching kiss.

His touch is like cold fire, stinging and biting and burning you so wonderfully that you can’t imagine ever pulling away. His tongue nudges yours, sliding easily past your wet lips. You’re crazy for him, and even when those clawed hands pull your thighs apart, the only hint of fear you feel is quickly swallowed up by the flame of your arousal.

You’re so wet already, and you squirm as the Reaper slowly shifts, rolling onto his back and tugging you over him. He’s watching you through heavy-lidded eyes, his face glowing with desire as pearls of bright blue bead at his head and run down his shaft.

You lick your lips, but when the wraith grabs your hips, you know he has something else in mind. And you’re not complaining one bit.

You gently shake his hand off your body, reaching down to grasp him. He grunts, hips jerking upwards, and you smirk. Even though you’re nearly trembling with how badly you want him, you force yourself to take it slow, to tease him.

You line yourself up, rocking your hips against his head. He makes a choked noise, chin tipping back, as you drag yourself against him. You bite your lip, holding back a whine as you grind against him, spreading your slick. He twitches, brushing against your clit, and you gasp, teeth sinking into your lip hard enough to hurt.

You finally give in when your thighs begin to tremble. You mean to take it slow, lining yourself up and sinking down just a little, but the second he spears into you, you lose all self control.

Open-mouthed, you sink down all the way, crying out softly at the abruptness of being stretched. Your body gives, and you can’t quite tell if the pain is from his size or from the cold.

You sigh, bracing both hand against his chest. His skin is frigid beneath your palms, but the rapidness of his breathing makes up for it. You suck in your own breath before pulling up, nearly fully off of him, and then dropping back down.

You both cry out, although his is suffocated in his chest. You reach up, grabbing his throat, just hard enough to feel him swallow.

“If you’re gonna act like a bitch, I’m gonna treat you like one,” you snap, annoyed. You want to _hear_ him. You want to hear what you’re doing to him.

He growls, and this one sounds more threatening than any sound you’ve ever heard him make. He moves quickly, catching you when you’re down on him and holding you there. You let out a yelp when he rolls you over onto your back, and then again when he pulls out of you, flipping you over onto your stomach. The speed of it leaves you reeling, and you’re moaning aloud, sloppy and crazed, as the wraith yanks your hips up into the air and drives into you from behind.

“Who’s the bitch?” he purrs, so close to your ear that you can feel the cold fog of his breath against your skin.

“Y-”

He slams into you again, before you can finish the word. You cry out, back arching, and he grips your thighs, holding you close as he nibbles your ear.

“What was that?”

“Fuck y-”

Your words choke of in another cry of pleasure as he nails you, this time so hard your whole body shudders with it. You’re gasping, and you can feel the juices dripping out of you, running slowly down your thigh.

“Are you ready to behave?” the wraith purrs, and you bite your lip, stifling a moan as he reaches down to trace one sharp claw over your clit.

“I’m ready to make you scream,” you pant, and he shoves your face down into the pillows. It takes ten seconds before you’re the one screaming, mouth filled with pillow and body trembling with pleasure. The wraith has you at his mercy, one hand teasing between your legs as he rocks his hips into you, filling you up until you’re quivering with the tension beneath your skin. You can feel his cloak falling around you both, the chilled fabric against nothing but skin, and your body _sings_ for him.

You cry out, squeezing around him, and he drives into you once more before stopping. The cold leeches into you from deep within.

For a long moment he doesn’t move, and you whimper, practically falling to pieces just from having him inside you.

“Show me what you’ve got,” the wraith rasps, and you groan as he pulls out of you.

You’re absolutely drenched with desire, and it takes everything you have not to dive on him the second the Reaper drops onto his back and reaches for you. You let him guide you over his hips, but the moment you feel him at your entrance, you break.

You slam down on him, and just like that, your rhythm is set at the pace of desperate, wild wanting. Each thrust is heaven, and your eyes roll back as you ride him like you’ve been starving for him for years.

He moans, claws digging into your thighs. He’s moving too, his hip jerking up to meet you, and you cry out, squirming when he’s fully inside you.

The Reaper chokes out a desperate noise, claws flexing and digging into your thighs hard enough to scratch your skin. The slight sting of pain only adds to the swell of wild desperation, and it’s faint enough that it’s nearly overwhelmed by the sting of his frozen touch.

“Fuck,” he chokes out, gripping your thighs like a lifeline. You whimper, climax building as you ride him closer and closer towards the tipping point.

“Ah,” he gasps, hips snapping up into you. He sounds ragged, now, and his voice itself is almost enough to make you cum. “Ah, _fuck,_ I-”

He chokes off with a jagged cry, and he claws for your hips, slamming you down and holding you around him as he tips over the edge. You can feel the familiar spill of cold inside you, but even fully sheathed, the mess begins to spill out of you. There’s so _much_ , and it really shouldn’t be as arousing as it is to watch the bright blue flood pour out of you when the wraith pulls nearly all the way out of you.

There’s so much of it that it covers your thighs, dripping back out onto his body. The glowing blue substance splatters his stomach and his thighs, coating his length in a sheen of slick.

You bite your lip, pussy quivering as you drop back down on him. He slides into you so fast, and he moans softly as you bounce on him, panting as you struggle to get any sort of friction.

He grabs your hips, pulling you against him as he rolls you onto your back one last time. You’re trembling underneath him, legs shaking as he hooks your thighs around his hips and plunges into you over and over and over. You cry out, and he seizes the opportunity to shove two taloned fingers into your mouth.

The cold digits pin your tongue, and when you whimper you can feel the sharpness. He slides them in further, until you’re blushing and you can’t do anything to stop the saliva running from the edge of your mouth.

The wraith slips his free hand between your legs, playing with your wet folds as he snaps his hips into you. He must be able to tell how close you are by your breathing, and he teases you, rubbing your clit before pausing, squeezing your thighs and your butt before thumbing your sensitive nerves yet again.

“Almost,” he croons, drawing out of you before plunging back in. Watching him disappear inside you is enough to have your back arching so hard it aches.

“You stubborn thing,” the wraith hums, pulling his claws out of your mouth. He ducks to bite your lips, kissing you as he returns to rubbing your clit, icy fingers vigorous and needy. “Let me have this.”

You explode with a strangled cry, and the wraith shoves his tongue into your mouth, greedily swallowing the sound. Your body presses against his as you come, _hard_ , and he crushes you to him, pawing at you and kneading your body until you go limp in his arms.

He lowers you back to the bed, and you’re _spent_ , body heavy and tingling in the afterglow. The Reaper is all over you, hands squeezing and exploring you as his lips press to your neck, sucking haphazard, sloppy kisses against your skin. He’s breathing hard, and his hands are shaking a little.

“May I,” he rasps, pausing to take a few panting breaths. “May I have just a little of your energy?” He swallows. “Just a taste?”

You tip your head to the side, exposing your neck to him. You’re physically exhausted, but you have enough clarity left to tease him. “One bite.”

The _gratitude_ that floods his face catches you completely off guard, as does the shockingly gentle brush of his fingers as he turns your face towards him.

His lips touch yours, but it’s nothing like the heated, open-mouthed kisses from earlier. He kisses you almost sweetly, his lips cold and soft. Once again you feel that slow drain, like your energy is leaking out of you. You’re already slow and heavy, but the feeling grows. It stops much sooner than last time, though, and the Reaper slowly pulls back from your mouth, lingering for just a moment as he brushes a kiss to your bottom lip.

“You didn’t kiss me last time,” you whisper, soft with drowsiness.

“I don’t need to,” he admits, but you turn a sleepy twitch of a smile on him.

“I like it.”

He laughs quietly, reaching towards you. You blink in surprise as he brushes a lock of hair off your forehead.

“Wait here,” he says, and that’s all you get before he’s turning away, slipping off the bed. You sigh, closing your eyes and counting on him not being enough of an asshole to run out on you. You stifle a yawn, stretching slightly and sighing in contentment as the heaviness settles through your body, making you so perfectly comfortable you don’t think you’ll ever move.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's already responded or commented! You guys are the sweetest <3  
> We've got one more chapter after this one, but I'll have it up today.  
> (Also, there's a reason this is tagged for light angst >:) )

You crack open your eyes, making a tiny noise of disgruntlement. You’re blinking away sleep, but you’re still so comfy that you could roll over and go straight back to your dreams. The only thing that stops you is the flicker of firelight at the edge of your vision, and the darkly dressed figure lying beside you.

Your eyes widen, and he snickers at you, reaching over to tug your blanket back up around your shoulders. The blanket is, in fact, the only thing covering you. You glance over to find that the Reaper is fully clothed, although he had the decency to leave the mask off.

“You were pretty out of it,” he observes casually, almost amused. “You didn’t even wake up when I cleaned you off.”

“Please tell me that stuff didn’t stain,” you say, wincing at the idea of trying to scrub bright blue smears off of your skin. He rumbles out another laugh and you yawn, stretching and lifting your head to see the firelight. “Did you start that? Is that okay? You won’t melt or anything, will you?”

He snorts, and you giggle.

“No, I won’t _melt_. Besides, you need the warmth. Keep that blanket on for a little longer. We need to warm you up gradually or you’ll get sick again.”

You nod, dropping your head back onto the pillow. You let yourself study his face, noting how much livelier he looks. His skin isn’t quite so cold, and the gray is almost gone. A warm brown tone has replaced it, and the blue is fading from his irises. He’s starting to look so human, with those dark, gentle eyes. He’s starting to look like someone you could fall in love with.

You recoil physically, pulling back with the blanket still wrapped around your shoulders. You clear your throat, making an effort to seem casual as you swing your legs over the edge of the couch bed and get to your feet.

“Am I allowed to have something to drink, or is that going to lead to round three?”

“Hilarious. Yes, you’re allowed to have something to drink. You should be fine now, but I’m trying to be careful. I don’t want to find you half naked in the snow again,” he adds drily, and you spin around to stick your tongue out at him before peering into the fridge.

The wraith doesn’t comment as you start a pot of milk simmering on the stove. In your peripheral you can see him get up, but you keep your face turned away. Still, your attention is on him as he wanders the room casually, checking it out. You can feel him circle around and come up behind you, but just as you steady yourself enough to glance over your shoulder, he’s moved away again.

“Can you put another log on the fire?” you ask, stirring chocolate mix into the now-steaming milk. It smells delicious, and as soon as the liquid turns a uniform brown, you take the pot off the stove and turn off the heat.

You grab two mugs from the cupboard, pouring until the pot is empty and the cups are brimming. Wisps of steam curl off the top of the drinks, and you blow on yours as you pick them up and carry them over to the couch before the fireplace.

The wraith looks up when you sit beside him, blinking when you hand him the mug. He tentatively takes it, and even when you swallow a few sweet sips of your drink, he only stares at his.

You go still with your lips inches from your mug as you realize something. “Oh my god, can you not eat?”

“I… can,” he assures you softly, eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t need to, but- I can.” He lifts the mug carefully to his lips, and he hesitates before taking a sip. Immediately his eyes widen, and he takes another small gulp before letting out a surprised little laugh that makes your heart kind of _melt._

“What?” you ask, and he shakes his head with a tiny, awed smile on his lips.

“I forgot how nice this was.”

His voice is so gentle; you don’t think you’ve ever heard him so unguarded. You lean a little closer to him, the warmth of your mug seeping into your hands.

“How nice what was?” you prompt, just to hear his voice again.

“Drinking hot chocolate.” He closes his eyes and takes a long drink. He looks so peaceful, you’re almost scared to breathe, in case it breaks the moment.

“You’ve- had it before?” you ask, and he nods, eyes still closed, his face so serene.

“Back when I was human.”

You think maybe your heart stops a little. “W-when you were _what_?”

His eyes open now, and he glances at you before looking down into his mug. His shoulders fall just a little, and you can’t help the stab of guilt at the look of melancholy that flits across his face.

“I used to be human, before this.” He gestures to himself with his free hand, almost like he’s disgusted, and it breaks your heat a bit. “I wasn’t always a monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” you murmur, but he shakes his head.

“I used to be human, like you. Maybe not- maybe not quite as good.” He looks away. “But _human_.”

“What happened?” You set your cup down on the fireplace shelf, turning towards the wraith.

He breathes out slowly, hunching in on himself a little. “I don’t know. I don’t remember all of it. I died.” He looks up at you when he says that, his gaze locking with yours. “It was so cold. When I came to, I was this thing.”

You frown, taking the cup from his hands and setting it down beside yours before taking his fingers in your grasp. “Don’t talk about yourself like that,” you say sharply. “Don’t talk like you’re some sort of monstrosity.”

“But I _am_ ,” he growls, pulling his hands away. “Just look at what I’ve done to you, and tell me I’m not a monster.”

“You didn’t do anything that I didn’t ask for!” you snap back, frustrated with his stubbornness. “And I don’t care if you’re not human. So what? What does it matter?”

He barks out a humourless laugh, but when he reaches for your chin, his touch is gentle. “So what? _So what_ is that I’m not safe for you to be around. I’m _death_. I’m made up of dead things, and you- you’re nothing but light.”

“I’m-”

He cuts you off. “You’re such a summer thing. I noticed it the moment you showed up in this fucking forest. You smell like sunlight, and you’re so _warm_ , and _alive_. You make me remember what it felt like to be _alive_.” His voice breaks. “You’re a thing of warmth and light, and I’m a thing of ice and darkness.”

“That’s not true,” you whisper, reaching out to him. He looks up just as you touch his cheek, and your heart skips a beat. He hardly looks like that wraith from the forest, now. In fact, his skin is a sold, warm brown. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are _brown_ , and he looks so, so alive. His lips part, but he doesn’t utter a sound, even when something like awed disbelief sweeps across his face.

“How can you look at me like that?” he whispers.

You bite your lip, shivering as his eyes flicker to your lips, and back up. “How can you look at _me_ like that?”

He catches your face between his hands, kissing you. This kiss isn’t cold, or rough, or brutal. It’s gentle, and sweet, and you swear it takes like springtime. He pulls back, studying your face, and you suddenly can’t look away from his lips, framed by a neat, dark beard.

“Reaper-” you breathe.

“Gabriel,” he interrupts, soft but insistent. “My name is Gabriel.”

You collide like a pair of doves, bursting with feeling but somehow still so gentle. He’s holding your face, kissing your lips over and over, his breath warm against your skin. He’s holding you so tenderly, and you reach for him, pulling him closer by his cloak.

He kisses your bottom lip, one hand fitting to the small of your back, pressing gently. You drag him closer, hands curled in his thick cloak as you pull him down to gently nip his lip. He opens his mouth for you, and your hands release his cloak, sliding up his shoulders, around his neck.

He presses against you, his tongue slipping briefly past your lips before retreating. You sigh, cupping one hand against the back of his head, carding it through his hair as you deepen the kiss.

The wraith- _Gabriel_ \- makes a soft sound. His hand slides higher up your back, supporting you as he bends you over, lowers you down. You tug him along, and he willingly follows. He doesn’t break the kiss as he lays you down on the couch beneath him.

The blanket slips from your body and you shiver, bare and uncomfortably cool.

Gabriel hums, finally pulling back from your lips. His eyes flicker over your body, those dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. You can’t stand not kissing him.

You reach for him, but Gabriel gently catches your arm. He stops for a moment, and both of you watch the way his claws wrap around your wrist, the wicked tips flashing in the firelight.

He releases you, sitting up, and the moment he pulls back, you jerk upright.

“Don’t-”

“Shh,” he murmurs, cutting you off with a shocking, brief kiss. You blink, bewildered enough to stay quiet as he reaches for his own hand, and- pulls off the gauntlet.

“Oh my god,” you whisper.

Where there used to be wickedly sharp, deadly claws, he now has hands. (Strong, sturdy, beautiful hands that you want all over you, but regular hands nonetheless.)

“You- can take those off,” you state flatly, recalling the sharpness of them scratching at your body. Not that you’re complaining all that much, in retrospect.

“I can now,” Gabriel replies quietly, carelessly tossing the gloves onto the fireside mantle. He reaches over, touching your cheek, and you close your eyes. His fingers are light, hesitant, and even when you lean into his touch, it still feels like he’s afraid to get too close.

You reach up to lay your hand over his, opening your eyes. His face is close, and you can see every scar, every mark, down to the glitter of light dancing in his lovely, lovely eyes.

“How can you call yourself a monster?” you breathe, before you can stop yourself.

Gabriel stiffens, his eyes widening. His gaze jumps over your face, like he’s looking for something. When he meets your eyes again, his whole expression softens. He holds your face, looking at you with something like adoration. Something in your chest stumbles and swells.

He’s leaning in, and his lips brush your forehead, skimming down your temple, your cheek. A kiss presses gently to the corner of your mouth, and when you turn to kiss him fully, you can feel his smile.

His hands hover inches from your skin, and you gasp when his fingertips touch your thigh.

Gabriel freezes, and you can feel his breath on your face as he slowly, slowly brushes his fingers up your leg, flattening his palm to your skin by the time he pauses at your hip.

Your eyes are still closed, and you’re on the edge of shivering at the contact, but he’s stone-still, waiting for your reaction. You hardly have to move an inch to meet his mouth, lightly sinking your teeth into his lip. You release it a moment later, kissing him, and Gabriel’s fingers tighten on your body as he responds with a dizzying fervor.

You reach up, wrapping an arm around his neck, gripping a handful of his dark curls as his hands massage your thighs, explore your body, slide up over your hips and your back, caressing each ridge of your spine. His hands are warm, but that doesn’t stop you from shuddering when Gabriel reaches around to grab the backs of your thighs and tug you up into his lap.

You bite back a moan, and then he pulls it free, fitting his lips to your throat and lavishing you with slow, open-mouthed kisses. He doesn’t take pity on you until you’re squirming, biting your lip to hold back whimpers.

Gabriel hums, shifting to suck at your ear. His tongue runs along the delicate shell of your ear and you choke on a whine, tugging at his hair as your body tightens in response to the sensation.

“Look at you,” he purrs, biting your ear delicately before pressing a kiss to your jaw. “Absolutely gorgeous.”

He reaches around to grab a handful of your thigh, rubbing his thumb against your hip. Your breath hitches when he shifts, and he laughs, brushing his hand up the inside of your thigh, teasing you. At the last moment he pulls back, lightly smacking your butt and jerking his chin toward the couch-bed halfway across the room.

You’re not about to refuse the offer. In less than a second, you’re off his lap. You try not to look so eager, but you really can’t stop yourself from hurrying over and dropping down on the edge of the bed. The mattress bounces a little, and Gabriel smirks at you, slowly getting to his feet. He doesn’t take his eyes off you as he prowls over, his steps slow and measured. His eyes are dark desire, and your breath hitches in your chest when he reaches you, pushing your knees apart to stand between your legs.

You swallow, skin warming with a thought-clouding flush. You look up at Gabriel, and a low growl rumbles in his throat.

He reaches out, touching your chin with a slow, lingering caress. “You look divine,” he murmurs, and then his fingers drop away from your face, going to his cloak.

You fall back onto your elbows, all sense fleeing from your head as you watch Gabriel slowly strip off his clothes. He has enough layers that it drives you crazy, and there’s nothing you can do but lie there and drink in his body as he peels off his cloak, and the rest of his clothing, dropping them carelessly to the ground.

You’d never had much of a chance to look at his body, and now that you do, you can’t seem to tear your eyes away. Even without the bulk of his cloak, he’s large. His body could engulf yours, and you shiver at the thought.

Gabriel’s skin is a lovely, warm brown, littered with scars that only make him that much more attractive. His strength is evident in the swell of his biceps and thighs, and somewhere around that point your brain stops functioning completely.

Gabriel knows you’re staring, and he smirks at you before bending down and crawling over you. Your whole body ignites, and you scramble back just enough to be fully on the bed, your breath stuttering as Gabriel matches your movements and prowls up to let his mouth hover millimeters from yours.

You’re trembling, and you can’t seem to think about anything but the inches between your bodies, and the warmth of his skin, and the burning ache of your desperate desire.

“Tell me what you want,” he breathes, his lips so close that you can feel the words, spoken like a secret between you.

“You,” you whisper, and he presses forwards, bending you back against the mattress as he kisses you with abrupt, feverish force.

You fling your arms around him, but your impatient hands refuse to stay still. You touch as much of his body as you can reach, moaning softly at the firmness of his chest, and his shoulders, and his arms. You curl your fingers around his bicep, hardly able to reach a third of the way around, and you bite Gabriel’s lip, stomach fluttering as his muscles flex under your touch.

Gabriel moans softly, kneading at your thigh as he lifts your leg, hooking it over his hip. You sigh, tangling your free hand in his hair, scratching lightly at the nape of his neck. Your belly thrills in delight when Gabriel shivers, pulling back to push your other knee to the side.

You spread your thighs, and Gabriel rewards you by slipping his fingers between your legs with a suddenness that makes you gasp.

You’re wet, and he teases you, spreading around your slick and humming softly when you squirm and choke on a whimper.

His fingers are warm and strong, and he swirls them around, teasing you with deftness that reduces you to a desperate mess in minutes. Your toes curl as he pushes his fingers into you. Gabriel just kisses your collarbone when you moan, squeezing around him as he fingers you.

“Please,” you gasp, back arching when he rubs a finger against your clit, swollen and sensitive. “Oh, please.”

“Hm?” he teases, pretending not to notice how your thigh has begun to tremble.

You squeeze your eyes shut, struggling not to give in even as your body reacts like it belongs to him.

“Ah, fuck- _please_ ,” you gasp, breaking when Gabriel pumps his fingers into you. The feeling is both utterly delicious, and entirely not enough, and you squirm, digging your nails into Gabriel’s back.

“Please,” you choke out, and he finally, _finally_ takes pity on you.

Gabriel pulls your leg higher up over his hip, and you crack open your eyes, breathing hard and fast. You barely have the presence of mind to focus on him as he lines himself up with you, but for one brief moment your mind steadies, and you realize that his cheeks are flushed, and his breathing is uneven, and when he looks up and meets your eyes, you nearly come right then and there.

He thrusts into you and you moan, eyes rolling back. One strong, fast movement is all it takes. Your body gives, spreading open and taking every inch of him, leaving you open-mouthed with the wonderful feeling of being filled.

Gabriel grabs your hip, and his fingers tremble a little as he closes his eyes, moaning softly. The look on his face alone makes you gasp, your body squeezing around him. Gabriel hisses, yanking your other leg around his hip and sliding his hands up your body.

You stifle a groan, but you can’t stay quiet for long; Gabriel gives you one moment of pause, one moment to gather yourself and begin to grow impatient, and then he lifts your hips, pushes your legs up over his shoulder, and plows into you with all the frantic, feverish, fantastic hunger swimming in his eyes.

You cry out, and it barely takes you a minute to devolve into a mess of noise. You’re choking on his name as you squirm and moan beneath him. Gabriel’s hands are all over your body, and you’re so lost in the haze of him that you can barely focus on anything. Feelings flit past in brief flashes of coherence: his hands on your hips, fingers digging into your thigh, his hair tickling your cheek, his _lips_ , oh _god_. The whole world is burning with the heat of your bodies, and Gabriel’s skin is the only thing cool enough for you to touch.

Gabriel drives into you and your back arches so hard it almost hurts. The pleasure sparks through you, igniting every inch of your skin, burning you up from the inside in the most wonderful way possible. You reach for him, your fingers fumbling against his thigh, and he stops with a shuddering movement.

You tip back your head, panting. “Don’t stop,” you gasp, and Gabriel laughs. It’s low, and raspy, and your reaction is visceral enough that the both of you moan with pleasure.

“Fuck,” Gabriel growls, reaching up to run his hand along your leg. “Fuck, look at you. You drive me wild. Come here, firecracker.”

You laugh, lying back until he pushes your legs off of his shoulders and drops them to the mattress. Gabriel pulls out of you and a noise of displeasure escapes your lips. You sit up with a bit of a struggle, and Gabriel smirks at your glare. He reaches over to tip up your chin, pausing to rub his thumb under your lip.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he growls, flopping onto his back. The movement bounces you on the mattress, and you steady yourself, blinking at Gabriel as he reaches out a hand for you.

“Come here,” he entreats you, but you don’t move. Your flash of stubbornness is gratified when Gabriel’s eyes flicker, and his expression takes on a more desperate, needy look. He beckons you nearer, his eyebrows furrowing adorably, and you smirk as you take his hand, letting him pull you over.

You pull away before he can get you overtop of him. As much as you want him, you enjoy teasing him far too much to let him off that easily. You duck down, and it’s a struggle not to moan when you get your hands on those thick, muscular thighs.

You duck your head, licking a stripe up his thigh, and Gabriel lets out a startled grunt. You aren’t even close to finished, and when you reach up to wrap your fingers around him, his hips jerk.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gabriel gasps, and you bite your lip. He’s so thick, and his length is wet with your slick. You can feel the shift of his body as he props himself up on his elbows to see you, and you glance up to hold his gaze as you press your lips to him.

The sound that he makes is divine. It’s deep, growling out from his chest, but it’s rough and staggered and breathy, and it makes your gut thrill with arousal.

You press your lips to his length, kissing every inch of it, teasing your tongue over the tip until Gabriel _whimpers_ , one hand frantically grasping for you.

_“Please_ ,” he rasps out, strained.

You spring up like you were just waiting for him to ask, hot and dripping with desire. The truth is that you can’t hold back any more, not with him looking at you like that. Gabriel’s hands catch your hips, firm and strong as he guides you over him. You reach down, wrapping your hand around him for a moment, lining yourself up.

You slide down on him slowly, and it’s such an effort to retain even that much self-control. Gabriel grunts, his body tensing, and you drop the last couple inches all at once.

“Oh,” you gasp, nearly shaking with how perfect he feels. “Oh, god, Gabriel-”

“Come on gorgeous,” he hisses, fingers digging into your thighs. “Let me hear you.”

Somewhere amid the movement of your bodies, you lose yourself. You’re nothing but heat and desire, an ache that only he can satisfy. You can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but _feel_ , and cry his name until you’re seeing stars.

Gabriel grabs you, holding you close and thrusting into you, every movement on the verge of pushing you over the edge. He’s so beautiful, his eyes dark and burning, his skin bright with a sheen of sweat. His muscles flex with each shift, and you cling to him, nails biting into his biceps as you ride him.

“I’m-” you gasp, and that’s about the extent of your coherence. You tip back your head with a whine, and Gabriel grabs your hips so hard it’s on the edge of painful.

You slam down on him harder, bouncing in his lap. Gabriel slips a hand between your legs, rubbing his thumb against your clit and sending bright, sharp, shuddering pleasure through you.

You rupture, a star going supernova under Gabriel’s touch. You come so hard your vision goes white and your skin tingles. You break into a million pieces, and even as your mind is entirely caught up in the wave of ecstasy that breaks over you, you’re distantly conscious of Gabriel snapping his hips into you, pushing closer to his own release.

You gasp as you come down from the high, your body trembling in the aftershock. You’re barely upright, but you’re not about to collapse. Not until Gabriel follows you.

You’re breathing hard, and it’s all you can do to hold onto Gabriel as he grips your thighs and chants glorious, desperate pleas. You moan, eyes rolling back as Gabriel stimulates your oversensitive body. His hips jerk, and you watch the pleasure sweep across his face, his lips parting in bliss as he reaches his own climax.

He spills into you, and you bite back a groan, shaking with the intensity of it all. You can’t move steadily, and Gabriel helps you, taking you into his arms and pulling out of you. His release drips down your thighs, but you can’t bring yourself to care as he lays you down beside him, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. His eyes are so dark, and heavy with pleasure.

You reach for him, dropping onto your back and tugging at his shoulders. Gabriel moves with clumsy heaviness. You guide him overtop of you, finally pulling him down to rest his head against your chest. He hums softly, nuzzling your skin as one hand drifts to your side, curling loosely in the sheets. The edge of his hand brushes your ribs.

You can hear your breathing, and neither of you speak until your breaths have slowed and evened out, become once more inaudible. You can feel the rise and fall of Gabriel’s chest against your body, and your heart pounds solidly against your ribs, struggling to get closer to him.

Gently, you cradle Gabriel’s head against your chest. His hair is soft, and his eyes are closed. He leans into your touch, a sleepy smile tugging at his lips as he nuzzles you. His cheek presses to your skin, his beard tickling just a little.

You close your eyes, letting your body relax with a deep, slow sigh. Gabriel shifts his face a little, and when you open your eyes again, it’s to find him looking at you.

He’s looking at you with something like wonder, something like admiration, and when your chest squeezes at the tenderness in his eyes, Gabriel gently reaches up, brushing his knuckles down your cheek.

“I’d do anything for you,” he whispers. His voice is low and thick.

You can feel your heartbeat.

“I don’t know if it’s even possible for me to die, but I would die for you,” he says. His fingers halt on your skin, his eyes flickering over your face. “I’ve never known anything like you.”           

“I’m not that special,” you laugh quietly, reaching up to catch his hand. You bring his knuckles to your lips, smiling when you lower your hands, leaving them curled together against your chest.

Gabriel is still looking at you like you’ve put the sun in the sky. A slow smile curls his lips, and there’s a hint of awed disbelief there as he kisses your collarbone. His eyes flutter closed, and his weight relaxes against you.

“It’s gonna kill me to leave you.”

The words are a shock to your heart, and with that, you’re anything but relaxed. Gabriel must feel you stiffen, because he blinks open his eyes, brows furrowing with confusion at your reaction.

“What?” you whisper. Sound lodges in your throat. You try to swallow it, but it chokes you, and all your words come out weak and hoarse as it all hits you. “W-what do you- oh god. Oh god, I’m- so _stupid_.”

Your laugh holds anything but humour as you push Gabriel’s hand away, push _him_ away. As much as it breaks your heart to leave his side, those tender, loving touches now feel like knives in your heart. Leaving. He’s leaving you, and you were dumb enough to believe that you weren’t some throw-away thing. You actually thought- you don’t know what you thought. But oh, it _hurts_.

Gabriel sits up, looking after you with wide eyes and parted lips as you stumble off of the bed, grabbing the nearest blanket to give yourself some decency.

“What-?” he asks, but you’re already whirling on him, burning with fury, and the gut-wrenching stab of betrayal, and pain.

“So this is how it is?” you snap, your words venom. You are so, so angry. (You are so, so devastated). Gabriel flinches, and even as it breaks your heart, you’re throwing up shields of anger. It’s either that, or break down crying.

You press a hand to your face, pinching the bridge of your nose. You’re choking on the threat of tears, and your voice betrays your pain as you hurl your words at Gabriel, at the wraith who found you in the forest, at the man you’re falling in love with.

“I can’t believe I was this _stupid_.” You force out a ragged laugh, retreating halfway across the room. You can’t bear to be close to him, not when he’s just plunged his hand into your chest and ripped out your heart.

“I can’t believe I thought- you must be _proud_ of yourself.” You wrap your arms around your body, trying to hold in the sick feeling in your gut. “I didn’t realize this was what you’d been planning from the start. How many people have you seduced? How many people have you tricked into caring-” You bite your lip, shaking your head. Tears prick at your eyes, and you furiously dash them away with the back of your hand.

“You know, I actually thought I meant something to you. I was actually stupid enough to think this was real.” Your voice breaks, but you push blindly onwards, even as Gabriel’s eyes widen and he jumps to his feet.

“How many? Dozens? Hundreds? I’m just another fly in the web, aren’t I. Another pathetic idiot that can’t help loving you, and that you’re going to toss aside as soon as you’re finished-”

“ _No_ ,” he barks, striding towards you fast enough that he catches your wrists before you can think to bolt. His eyes are blazing, and wide, and a little bit horrified.

“No,” Gabriel whispers, and his grip immediately gentles on your wrists. “It’s only you. It’s only ever been _you_.” He steps closer, holding your hands to his chest. “I- would _never_ do that to you. The _last_ thing I would ever do is hurt you. I-” His expression is so tender that it breaks your heart, and you don’t understand.

“But you’re going to leave me,” you say flatly, reminding him of his own words before he can confuse your heart all over again. He could shatter you a million times over, and you’d still come back to him. You’d still beg him to love you.

Gabriel releases your hands, moving as though you’re a wild animal, ready to bolt. He takes you into his arms, relaxing when you let him. And of course you let him- you can’t resist him. You can’t say no to those gentle eyes, and his careful arms, and the way he tucks you against his chest and cradles you close as he nuzzles your hair.

“It’s not because I want to,” he whispers, delicately kissing the crown of your head. “If I had the choice, I would never let you go.”

“Then why…?”

Gabriel tucks your head under his chin, rocking you gently. “You know what I am,” he explains softly. “I’m not human. I’m- a wraith. A spirit. A _thing_ , and-”

“No. Not a thing,” you mumble against his chest.

Gabriel tenses, and then relaxes, and then holds you just a little bit tighter. “Not a thing,” he breathes. He clears his throat a little. “But what I am- I’m tied to the winter. I’m tied to the cold, and the ice, and to death. And, like the winter, I’m temporary. Seasonal.”

As you begin to understand, your body goes rigid. Gabriel rubs your back, still holding you close.

“Come sit with me,” he murmurs, and you’re not about to refuse him. You let Gabriel lead you back to the bed, and when you collapse down onto it, he takes you back into his arms, holding you close to his skin as you abandon your blanket. Gabriel, ever concerned for you, wraps the blanket around you both as he hugs you to his heart.

“Seasonal,” he repeats quietly, and you bite your lip, wishing he would stop talking. Wishing it wouldn’t be true.

“I’m tied to the winter in every way. When the season changes, I fade with it.”

“No,” you interrupt, catching his face between your hands and desperately searching his face. Somehow, this is worse than believing he was using you. “No, there has to be- you can’t _die_ , I won’t let-”

You break off, startled into silence by, of all things, his laughter. Gabriel’s eyes are bright, sparkling with warmth and amusement, and he’s still looking at you with that strange mix of adoration.

“Not death,” he assures you, caressing your cheek with light fingertips. “It’s more like… hibernation. Like sleep. I’m not substantial enough to notice most of the time that passes, but I wake up more and more as winter draws closer. My strength and my existence are tied to it.”

“So- so when winter’s over…”

“I’ll fade,” he tells you gently.

You swallow, pressing your hand to his heart and studying his face beseechingly. “But you’ll come back? Next year?”

“Yes. And every year after.”

You avert your eyes, cheeks warming as the timid question escapes you. “And you’ll come… back here?”

There’s no reply, and you force your eyes back to Gabriel’s face. You get to watch as his whole expression brightens, and something like _joy_ lights his features. Gabriel touches your cheek, tilting your face towards his.

“I’ll come back to you as long as you’ll let me.”

You bury your face against his chest, breathing him in. Gabriel wraps his arms around you, holding you close. His cheek presses against the side of your head.

“Promise me,” you plead. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.”

“I swear it,” he says, giving you his word as easily as he gives you his kisses. He presses his lips to your forehead, lingering for a long, sweet moment. “Darling, I’m yours.”

Those last words are whispered against your hair, but they sing through you so sharply he could have shouted them. You grab him, squeezing him in a hug, and Gabriel lets out the softest hum of amusement, holding you in return and kissing your lips.

You stay like that until evening, cuddled together before the dying embers of the cabin’s fireplace. Gabriel isn’t willing to let you go, and when you inevitably have to get up to get dressed and feed your growling stomach, he grumbles and sulks.

You’ve only barely begun to make your food when Gabriel ghosts up behind you, wrapping his arms around your middle. He nuzzles his face into your shoulder, kissing your neck and your ear until you giggle and threaten to shake him off. After that he behaves, his arms resting protectively around your waist as he watches you cook.

You make a point of feeding him as well, and Gabriel humours you, although he refuses to eat a bite until you’ve crawled into his lap. Now that he’s promised to stay with you, it seems like he’s afraid to let you go. You can’t complain; the only thing better than being in his arms is having his skin against yours as he kisses you crazy.

You reach up, touching Gabriel’s cheek where it rests on your shoulder. The light outside has long-since faded, and the two of you are cozy with the drapes drawn and the air still warm from the last smouldering embers of the fire.

Gabriel sighs, kissing your jaw, and then your cheek. “Are you tired?” he asks, his voice soft as snow.

“A little,” you confess. You stifle a yawn, snuggling back into Gabriel’s arms. “Mm, stay with me?”

You let your eyes fall closed, focusing on the way he nestles you against his chest and tugs the blanket up to your chin.

“I will,” he murmurs, his words as sweet as a song, and as gentle as a lullaby.


	5. Chapter 5

As the sky begins to brighten and the moon spends less and less time in the sky, the winter works its way towards its end. The thick snows turn to sleeting drizzle, and more and more nights the temperature doesn’t drop below zero. The snow and ice melts away, and the world smells of snow mold and damp, and then, eventually, of growing things.

The change is evident in Gabriel. It’s gradual, but he fades, too. It starts with his need for your energy. He requires less and less of it to stay warm, to keep the frost and ice from his skin. Eventually he stops needing you at all, and then the next morning, your fingers pass right through his. You panic, not ready to lose him yet, but Gabriel assures you he isn’t going to vanish overnight.

You can see the effort it takes it to stay solid, especially as spring draws ever nearer. Finally, he reaches the point where he can no longer hold you. His body is as insubstantial as mist.

Still, Gabriel doesn’t leave you. He stays with you, a faded ghost that you can’t touch. But his smiles, his sweet words, the look in his eyes- they’re all worth the frustration of not being able to kiss him, or cup his face, or wrap your arms around his waist.

At last, the colour begins to drain from him, and Gabriel starts to fade entirely.

“You promise me?” you ask him, over and over again as the nerves jump at the sight of his faintness. “You promise me you’ll come back? I’ll see you again?”

“Of course. Of course you will. You couldn’t keep me away.” He smiles, reaches for your face, only to have his hand pass through you. It’s frustrating for both of you. No matter how many times you ask him, though, Gabriel seems happy to reassure you that you won’t lose him, not completely. You suspect he’s also glad to hear you voice your own part of the promise.

On the first day of spring, you wake up with nothing beside you but the echo of a voice whispering your name. You call out to him, at first panicked, and then despairing. You get no response.

You had thought that being prepared would lessen the blow of losing him. You were wrong; your stomach goes empty, and your chest aches, and the only thing that stops you from breaking down is the promise of next winter, and the hope of biting cold, and the dream of your lover’s touch.

You rise from your bed, pausing when something shifts on the pillow beside you. It’s delicate, but perfect, and you carefully pick it up.

The feather is long, thick, and softer than anything. It’s brown, the most beautiful shade in the entire universe.

 You close your eyes, brushing it against your cheek. It’s a ghost of feeling, the memory of Gabriel’s breath on your skin in the moments before he kissed you. You tuck the feather carefully away, even as a smile tugs at your lips. He left you a gift, something to remind you. A physical promise. A piece of him that you can keep with you forever.

Without Gabriel, you can’t bear to be in the cabin. You pack your things, and you’re gone the next day, heading back into the city, diving into the distracting bustle of life. On the roadside, there are flowers beginning to bud bright green. For once, they signal anything but joy.

You swallow down the weight of missingness and longing that has already settled like a rock in your chest. You tuck your hand into your pocket, running your fingertip along the edge of the owl feather.

You won’t forget.

 

Spring slips by in a chill of fresh flowers and green things. The world is unthawed and thriving, and you can’t look at the swollen blooms of irises or roses without wishing for them to be covered with frost, sprinkled with snowflakes, glazed with ice.

You’re busy enough that you can forget the stone in your chest for the most part, but every once in a while you’ll catch yourself off guard with the longing, and people will see you holding an own feather, running your finger along the edge like it’s your most precious possession.

Summer whirls by in a haze of heat, all sun and sand and ocean. The heat is painful, because it reminds you too much of your lover’s frozen touch. The summer is bittersweet, tainted always by the ache for Gabriel.

Autumn is a relief. The leaves crackle and curl, and the chill breezes blow, and everything smells of wood fires and pumpkins. You relish in the cold, and while others lament the upcoming winter, you can barely contain your excitement. Your step quickens, and your very bones seem to vibrate with electric impatience. When the first snows fall, a powdery dusting of white, you’re calling Amélie and breathlessly asking her if she’d mind if you went out early this year. All through the call, you can’t tear your eyes away from the snowflakes dancing in the chilly wind outside your window.

Amélie thinks you’re half-crazy, but she gives you the cabin keys without complaint. You hardly linger long enough for her to tell you that she’ll meet you out there in a month.

When you get to the cabin, there is no snow on the ground. The trees are bare and prepared for the cold, and the harsh wind hisses through the bushes and pines. You walk the forest until your skin is numb with the cold, retreating to the warm cabin with a sinking heart.

It takes three days for the snow to really fall. A small storm hits, and the wind howls against the cabin for three days. The snow collapses onto the ground in thick layers, and when the storm finally blows past, the world is blanketed in white. Flakes of snow flurry through the air on a stiff, biting breeze. You’ve never felt anything so wonderful.

You bundle up, blocking out the cold to the best of your ability and braving the fresh white landscape. You leave deep prints in the snow as you wander into the forest. The world smells like ice, and chill, and cold, fresh things. You can smell the woodiness of the forest, like a sting of pine on your tongue.

The forest is still, and the trees are heavy with snow, branches bowing under the weight. The whole world is still asleep, wrapped in a thick blanket of white. Nothing but you stirs the silence, the stillness.

Something rustles across the clearing, and you turn around, clumsy with your heavy boots. Your tracks trace across the snow until they hit the trees, disappearing past the bushes that tremble slightly, shedding snowflakes under a shadow’s touch.

You’re holding your breath as the figure pushes between the bushes, striding to the edge of the clearing before stopping. Your heart stops along with him.

Gabriel looks the same as the first time you met. He’s wrapped in a cold indigo cloak, his mask glowing with a bright blue light. His hands are icy claws, and he’s a tall, frozen specter of ice.

You don’t think you’ve ever felt this kind of delight before.

“Gabriel!” you cry. Every day since you’ve last seen him hits you all at once. All that time without him, doubting if you’d really ever see him again, and here he is, standing in front of you, as quiet as the trees.

You trip forwards, fighting through the snowdrifts, struggling against the clumsy weight of your boots. Gabriel starts towards you, sweeping gracefully closer, reaching for you. You cry out when he catches you, and he takes you into his arms, pulling you close to his chest. You fling your arms around him, but then you pull back, stretching up to catch his mask between your palms.

“Gabriel,” you repeat, and he reaches up to yank off his mask, tossing it to the side as he cups your cheeks in his hands. He’s so careful not to let his claws scratch your skin.

“Hello beautiful,” he breathes, and then he’s kissing you. The kiss is cold as ice, sharp as frost, bitter as winter. It’s so, so perfect. You could die happy, if only he’d kiss you in your last moments.

Gabriel’s arms go around you, and you press against him, and you’re so eager and intense that you knock the both of you to the ground. Gabriel holds you as he falls back into the snow, and he laughs until you cut him off with a kiss, hands pressed to his chest as you taste his lips until you can’t breathe.

“Gabriel,” you say again, the word that is lodge in your throat, in your head, in your heart. “Oh, Gabriel, I’ve missed you.”

He kisses you, gentle. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs, tracing one claw against your lip. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

It’s plain on his face; his eyes glimmer with joy and adoration, and even as you both struggle back to your feet, he doesn’t let you go. Even with his eyes bright, glowing blue, you know that look. You reach for his hand, and Gabriel curls his fingers with yours, pulling you to his side. He kisses your neck, and your cheek, making you shiver with the cold. Still, you lean into his touch, and Gabriel laughs, kissing your cheek once more.

“Come on,” he murmurs, tugging you in the direction of the cabin. “Let’s warm you up before you get frostbite.”

You smile, pressing close to his side as he helps you through the thick drifts of snow. The weight that had been settled inside you for so long has miraculously vanished; you’re lighter than air, lighter than the fog of your breath in the cold. You look up to Gabriel’s face, and he wraps his arm around your waist, holding you close as you make your way back to the cabin.

“Are you hungry?” you tease, as you snuggle against him, tucked under the side of his cloak. Gabriel runs a hand over your hair, turning a smile on you. It’s mischievous, his sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight and his eyes lit with an ethereal glow. Even so, the _happiness_ there is clear as day. He looks like an angel, and when he wraps his arm back around your waist and speaks, his voice is like a song.

“I’m starving.”


End file.
